Thought this seemed relevant in light of the media coverage of the primaries. 7% of the people have voted and the millionaire "Public Opinion Complex" has pretty much called this race.
Democracy in this country is a joke and this goes a long way towards explaining why.
Knowing the Enemy
It's easy to look around and see what's wrong with America. For progressives who work to make our country a better more just democracy, it's just hard to know where to start. From the corruption of corporate money on our political process, or the imposition of fundamentalist religious ideals on our secular state, to the never ending assault on our civil liberties by those who just don't understand our constitution, progressives have a whole menu of issues to take up. And, it seems, a never ending amount of work to do.
But there is a deeper threat to our democracy than the John Ashcrofts or George Bushes of the world. A deeper threat than even the big money who brought these men to power. A deeper threat because it is the facilitator of all other threats. The backbone on which all threats rest. This mother of all threats is the corporate media.
Thomas Jefferson said he would "rather have a free press and no government than a government and no free press" for a reason. He understood that without an informed electorate, democracy simply cannot function. He understood that in a democracy, we really have four branches of government. The executive, the congress, the judiciary and the people. And he understood that for the people to govern, they require an agent of information: the ultimate check against the corruptive influence of power. This is the role of the press.
But what happens when the press ceases to be the agent of the people and instead becomes the agent of power? Look around.
The lust for power is as old as civilization. History, from the very beginning, is the story of this lust and the cycles of power gained and lost. The nature of man has not changed.
But with the American experiment came a new order. For the first time in history, the people had the ultimate say about how they were governed and by whom. Armed with only a ballot and the 1st Amendment, Americans were able to limit the concentration of power and protect the interest of the many against the interest of the few. And then came television.
The First Amendment is meaningless if you don't have the microphone.
In the days of our founders, all you had to do to be heard was to stand up on the courthouse steps. And though this never guaranteed people would listen, you at least had a chance to speak. The big communication technology of the day, the printing press, was already relatively cheap and available. So you could even spread your message far and wide if you were so inclined. And this was the state of things when the blueprints of our democracy were drawn up. Nobody could have imagined the power of a little box that would allow sound and pictures to be beamed into millions of homes across the land. But this power soon became evident.
The predominant images of the 1950's were born out on television: Elvis, Ed Sullivan, Lucy and The Price is Right. But the real story of the 50's was television itself. In 1949, advertisers spent $12 million on television advertising. Six years later, in 1955, they spent $1 billion.
Suddenly a new industry had emerged staffed with motivational psychologist and marketing wizards. Madison avenue became the apex of the new capitalism. So powerful was television to sell products, that many began to suspect that mysterious methods of mind control were at play. But to the American public it was all good fun and so they watched and they bought and the largest economic boom in history occurred. No one even noticed the beginning of the end of democracy as they had known it.
Mr Smith goes to Madison Avenue
In 1951, Ike Eisenhower hired Madison Avenue marketing guru Rosser Reeves to direct a series of political ads for the upcoming presidential campaign against Adlai Stevenson. This marked the first time that a campaign used the power of television advertising to package and sell a candidate. Eisenhower went along reluctantly but he won the election and the marriage of Madison Avenue and politics was consummated. Never again would a political campaign be the same.
Another outcome of the golden era of television was the rise of the corporation. All of that economic prosperity wasn't spread out over the economic landscape. The ones who benefited from television advertising were the ones who could afford it. This contributed to the ever increasing disparity of wealth and power between big and small businesses. This disparity is growing exponentially. Soon it will be nothing but Walmart.
So the last fifty years have seen two forces come together to create a perfect storm for fascism: the rise of the power of television and the concentration of that power by the few who can afford to take advantage of it. And those who can afford it aren't so willing to share it.
What we have now is Thomas Jefferson's worst nightmare: free speech that costs millions of dollars, a so-called free press that is owned by the very power they are supposed to keep in check, and an entire nation's predominant method of communication under control of a handful of corporations.
Make no mistake, the true power in our country, in our world, is the broadcast media and the crony press corp they employ. They are the source of the power and the source of the corruption. George Bush could never have gained the presidency without the compliance of a corrupt press. His complete lack of qualifications for the job should serve as the ultimate marker of the failure of our entire system of governance. His presidency is the canary in the coal mine.
Of course a free, open and engaged press would not make our democracy perfect. But when the people are properly informed, they, on average, tend to make good decisions. This is why democracy works. Its also why the United States has the oldest standing government in the world.
So for us to win the fight against social injustice, environmental injustice, economic injustice, or any issue you want to address, we must first know who the real enemy is, and defeat that enemy first. We must see that George Bush is not the cause but the effect and realize that without attacking the root cause, all of our other battles will be in vain. The bottom line: we have to get our priorities straight.
Look around. Out of all the activist journals, websites, articles, documentaries or any other expression of alarm, how many address the media or the press? Surely that number has gone up recently. But on any given day, at best, we're looking at 1%.
The internet is a good indicator of peoples priorities. There are literally thousands of websites dedicated to progressive issues from the environment to defeating Bush. But the ones dedicated to exposing our corrupt media you can count on one hand.
Why does the media get a free ride? Because they're the ones shaping the debate. The internet revolution is upon us and this new technology will undoubtedly be the greatest weapon against this media induced fascism. But it hasn't happened yet.
Take the example of campaign finance reform. For years we've been hearing about the excessive amounts of money that candidates raise and spend. This issue has even managed to get some prime-time exposure in the media. But in all the debate on this issue, how many times have you heard about who all that money actually goes to. In fact most don't even realize that most of the billions spent by campaigns every election goes to media corporations. Apparently that part of the issue is not important.
And you certainly won't hear it raised by our humble politicians. They're too afraid they won't be invited back on Hardball or Bill O'Reilly. This is not a joke. In Washington, getting three minutes of free airtime on a popular talkshow is gold. It means you've hit the big time.
Free speech, our political speech, is big bucks.
No, if we all had our priorities straight, exposing and discrediting the corrupt media and their crony employees would be our number one issue. We would dedicate many more of our websites to exposing this corruption. We would keep files on pundit's salaries and stock holdings and other conflicts of interest. We might even keep files on their excessive drinking and socializing with the power that they are supposed to keep in check.
And we would put on hold many of our other pet issues so that we could dedicate all of our energies to discrediting and defeating this ultimate threat to democracy. Because we would know that until our most sacred free press is truly restored as the agent of the people, we will be always truly powerless.